Beyond Oscars glitz, movie theaters face uncertain future
By Lisa Richwine
Reuters
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Maryo Mogannam snuck into the Empire theater in San Francisco with his older cousins to watch Animal House when he was 14. He watched most of the James Bond movies at the historic art house and took his wife there on some of their first dates.
The cinema, which had been showing movies since the silent film era, served notice in February that it was permanently closing because of the impact of COVID-19. The marquee is now blank, and cardboard and paper cover the box office window.
A FEW YEARS AGO A movie I had been waiting quite a while to see finally arrived at a theater in Houston. The day it was to open I had to leave town and wasn’t able to make it back for two weeks. I opened the paper and was greatly relieved to discover that my movie was now entering its “THIRD SMASH WEEK.” That night, a Friday, convinced there was going to be trouble getting tickets, I goaded a friend into limiting her dinner to a single harried bite of cheese, then careened, my car nearly out of control, to the theater. We were the first people to buy tickets, and we waited for 35 minutes, ears assaulted all the while by chintzy muzak, while the night’s nine other patrons drifted in one by one. I was wrong about the movie, too, as my friend pointed out through tightly clenched, cheese-encrusted teeth.
Posted on Monday, April 19th, 2021 by Hoai-Tran Bui
New York City movie theaters are steadily opening back up. Roughly two weeks after the state expanded its vaccine eligibility to all residents, New York Governor
Andrew Cuomo announced that New York City movie theaters can expand their capacity from 25% to 33%, starting next week.
Cuomo on Monday announced new COVID-19 (coronavirus) safety guidelines, which included a capacity expansion for New York City movie theaters, Deadline reports. Theaters were allowed to reopen at a limited capacity of 25% on March 5, and just over a month later, Cuomo has announced that the capacity can increase to 33%. This just after U.S. theaters enjoyed the best box office weekend since the coronavirus pandemic began.
First-Ever Cinema Week to Promote Moviegoing as Pandemic Eases (Exclusive) hollywoodreporter.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hollywoodreporter.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE:AMC) climbed 3.4% through 3 p.m. EDT Monday after the state of New York announced it will soon increase allowed capacity in its movie theaters by 50%.
As Deadline.com reported this afternoon, New York s new COVID-19 safety guidelines will permit theaters to increase capacity from 25% (currently) to 33% (effective April 26), about a 50% increase.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
This may be only the beginning. With the summer movie season fast approaching, the New York chapter of the National Association of Theatre Owners is asking the governor to continue raising movie theater capacity limits, hoping to get to 50% capacity by Memorial Day (May 31) and then to 75% by July 4 in time for the rollouts of major tentpoles like